Unexpected
by FanfictionWriter83729
Summary: Oneshot. The Autobots are involved in another hostage situation…but this time, it isn’t a Decepticon who has a blade at Spike’s throat.


**Disclaimer: **do not own Transformers.

**Summary: **Oneshot. The Autobots are involved in another hostage situation…but this time, it isn't a Decepticon who has a blade at Spike's throat.

**Rating: **T

**Author note: **I really should get back to Movieverse…but G1 oneshots/drabbles are so much fun to write! Inspired by Batman: The Dark Knight, in particular the character of Two Face.

* * *

_The closer we are to danger, the farther we are from harm._

-Two Towers

Unexpected

The Autobots had surrounded the culprit and the victim, but given the nature of the culprit's motive, they couldn't come any closer. If they did or even _said _anything, it might make matters worse.

Bumblebee could just stand there, with the human authorities, looking on desperately as the blade threatened to dig deeper into Spike's throat. One human, roughly Sparkplug's age, grasped Spike's arm with one hand as the other hand held the quivering blade.

Spike had been in dangerous situations like this before, when the Decepticons had him. But instead of calling out for help, he was silent. He had closed his eyes, and one hand was pressed to his side, trying to slow the blood loss.

He didn't want to panic his father, who was trying his best to remain calm and get his son out of there.

Sparkplug and the human had been exchanging words for minutes, but felt like hours.

"John," Sparkplug said, hands futilely raised in a placating gesture. "John, please. Just let him—"

"I told you, Will!" the crazed man bellowed. There were dark circles under his eyes, and he looked like he lost great deal of weight in a short amount of time. "I told you—I told you! When those _things _came from the sky, bringing their war with them, I told you to leave it alone! But what did you do? You went right into it, you crazy bastard, and you took your kid with you!"

"John, please, I—"

"I did everything right, Will!" he continued, and the blade went a fraction of an inch closer. Sparkplug took an uneasy step back. "When the raids started, I booted Max out of the power plant. I told him not to bring any strange equipment home. I told him not to get into any strange cars. I told him how to tell _our _car apart from the masquerading freaks. As soon as he was old enough I sent him away to college in a tiny rural state whose town only _had _five cars! And what happened, Will?"

"John," Sparkplug said, his voice strained to the point of breaking. "John, I'm sorry about Max. But what you're doing—"

"Don't you _dare _say that!" he answered, spitting out his words. "Don't you _dare. _My boy was all I had left, Will! You don't know what it's like to lose a child." His voice cracked suddenly. "Children do not belong in a battlefield, Will," John said quietly. "Am I the only one who understands that?"

There was a pause, and the chief of police said, very quietly. "Sir, we understand that you are mourning for you child, but please, think about what you are doing."

"I know what I'm doing!" John spat, though his words were directed at Sparkplug. It was as though he didn't recognize that anybody else was there. "You like messing with your kid's life, don't ya Sparky?" John asked, his voice changing to a mocking tone. "You let the freaks mess with his life too. Why do you get all worked up when it's someone like me who decides if he lives or dies?"

His hand let go of Spike's arm as he drew out a coin from his pockets. "The only morality this world has is chance, Will," he said, voice strangely calm. "Heads, you keep your boy. Tails, and he keeps Max company."

A shot rang out as soon as the coin was in the air.

Bumblebee got strange and furtive looks as he entered the human hospital, but no one asked him to leave. It was a human weapon that fired the shot and killed the captor, and one of the human authorities had stepped forward to take the responsibility, but in the chaos, facts got mixed up, misinterpreted, and sometimes just plain thrown out the window.

The Autobots were split between dealing with the human authorities and the media and pacing outside of the hospital.

Bumblebee found Sparkplug, staring blankly ahead of himself, as he waited for Spike to get out of the operating room. Bumblebee, after a pause, sat down on the floor next to the chair. He wanted to say something—_anything—_but could not come up with the words.

From what he had gleaned from media sources, he understood that this "John" character had lost his progeny in a Decepticon attack on a city, while Max was visiting his father. Bumblebee didn't quite understand why the human did what he did. Wouldn't he be angry at the Decepticons, or even at the Autobots? Bumblebee didn't understand why the distraught parent had chosen to lash out at Sparkplug and Spike.

Maybe that was because of the difference in their programming. Their newly sparked could fight and defend themselves right from the proverbial cradle.

When they had met Sparkplug and Spike, they hadn't known that humans were vastly different. But by the time they had figured out that human young were helpless and entirely dependent on their parents for protection, it was too late. They had already been closely affiliated to the Autobots by the Decepticons. If they, or indeed, any of their human allies, left them or if the Autobots talked them out of acting as unofficial human liaisons, it would have been like posting a huge sign above their heads declaring that they be taken.

But their closeness to the Autobots had, at once, put them in a position that was more dangerous and yet, in a scary sense, much safer than the positions of the other humans.

Bumblebee was still trying to make sense of it all.

"I knew him," Sparkplug said suddenly, his voice flat.

"What's that?" Bumblebee asked.

"I knew him. John. When they were younger, Spike and John's boy, Max, went to soccer practice together. John used the carpool the kids home."

Bumblebee couldn't form a response to that. He could just sit there, with Sparkplug, and pray with him.


End file.
